#the test

It's time for that morph. Tobias morphing Taylor.

Rachel chose the outfit, so I was dressed to kill. And I would have looked great in rags... I was a cover girl who could give even Angelina Jolie a run for her money.

That is a lot of confidence Tobias has from this morph. And it's not like the confidence is a Taylor trait. What he finds in her instincts are "gentleness, fear, and joy. Very little cunning. Almost no hate." Nothing about the sudden confidence boost Tobias gets from morphing a girl.

The kid turned to take my order. I smiled and he almost fell over. It was crazy to have such power. I'd been on the receiving end before. I'd never been the source. Is this what Rachel experienced? Was this part of what made her so brave?

I BEEN DRAWING NOTHING BUT STRAIGHT BULLLLL SHIIIIIITTTTT !!!!!

It's #43! Tobias is so caught up in proving that he's not scared of Taylor that he doesn't stop to ask whether he should be scared of Taylor, Marco and Ax and to a lesser extent Jake get tunnel vision about the possibility of killing a lot of yeerks and rescuing a lot of hosts, and Rachel is so out-of-character that she basically doesn't exist in that book. So Cassie's the only one with a clear enough head to ask "what about the Yeerk Peace Movement?" and "why are we trusting Sub-Visser Fifty-One, again?" and "didn't we fucking agree that we weren't going to kill innocent noncombatants, Jake?"